In summer of 1940 Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union and became a Soviet
Republic. Under the new regulations, the Shadeve factories, owned mostly by
Jews, were nationalized. Jewish shops were also nationalized and in many cases
the former owners were appointed to manage them. All Zionist parties and youth
organizations were disbanded, and the Hebrew school was closed. Supply of goods
decreased and, as a result, prices soared. The middle class, mostly Jewish,
bore the brunt of this situation and the standard of living dropped gradually.

A fragment of the oldest Sefer Torah in Lithuania

In the middle of July an order was issued for all the Jews to lock and leave
their homes, after pasting a note on the door with the name of the owner. They
were then ordered to gather in the market square. They were allowed to take a
small parcel and were told to hand over keys of their homes to the police.

They were then transported, heavily guarded, passing a few stations on the way,
and in the middle of the night they arrived at the village Pabarstyciai, about
five kilometers from Shadeve. There, they were crowded into two unfinished
wooden structures with no water and no light that the Soviets had intended to
use as barracks; it had a low barbed wire fence with a guard stationed at it.
Twenty-five Jewish youngsters who had worked at nearby farms were brought to
this camp as well. They had wounds from blows inflicted by the Lithuanian
guards. The only Jewish doctor present at the scene was Dr. Patorsky, who
tended the wounded.

The camp inmates were provided with small amounts of food that guards had
collected from the deserted Jewish homes.

The day the Jews were taken out of their homes amid death threats, they were
forced to hand over money, gold and other valuables in their possession. On
August 3, 1941 the Lithuanians took ten more men out of the camp for
labor activities. On the way to Radvilishok (Radviliskis) they were
shot near lime pits, and their bodies covered with lime. In the middle of
August the Lithuanians took twenty-seven Jews out of the camp, including Rabbi
Mordehai-David Henkin, and led them to the neighboring village of Kauliskiai
where they were shot dead. Thirty-five Jews who worked on the farms at the
Raudondvaris estate, a few kilometers away, were also murdered and buried at
the same place.

On August 25, 1941 (2nd of Elul, 5701) the last Shadeve Jews were
loaded on trucks, and driven to the Liaudiskiai forest, about 10 kilometers to the
south-west of Shadeve, where all were shot. According to Soviet sources two
mass graves were found containing the bodies of 664 men, women and children.
After the murders, the murderers held an all-night drinking feast.

Three families, which included Dr. Patorsky, and the Nul and Kuper families who
were fighters in the Lithuanian battles of independence were allowed to remain
in the town six further weeks, but were shot later. Only Shulamith, the wife of
Nul, managed to survive by hiding at a peasant's farm all the years until the
liberation.

Mass grave near the village Pakutenai (one of two massacre sites).
The inscriptions on the tablet are in Yiddish, Hebrew and Lithuanian.

The names of the Lithuanians who robbed and murdered the Jews are recorded at
the archives of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

After the war monuments were erected at mass graves.

According to the census of 1970 and 1979 one Jew lived in Shadeve. In 1985 not
one Jew remained in the town.

The second massacre site near Pakutenai village.
The burial site of the six Jews who managed to escape
from the camp in Pabarstyciai village. In August 1941 all of them
were tortured to death by the Lithuanian Nazi collaborators.

The massacre site in Liaudiskiai forest
The inscriptions in Yiddish, Hebrew and Lithuanian state:
In this place, on August 25, 1941, the Hitlerist murderers and their local collaborators
murdered about 800 Seduva Jews, men, women, children.

Gershon Kremer, cousin of the Rabbi Eliyahu, Gaon from Vilna, served in Shadeve
1831, wrote several books.
Eliezer-Simhah Rabinovitz (1832-1911), was active in public issues.
Noakh Rabinovitz (1832-1902), in Shadeve from 1890, preached for the settlement
of Eretz-Yisrael, published several books.
Simhah HaLevi Hurvitz, in Shadeve from 1871.
Yehudah-Leib Rif, from 1886.
Avraham-Aharon Burshtein (1867-1926), in Shadeve 1901-1902.
Yosef Kanovitz, from 1903.
Yosef-Yehudah-Leib Blokh (1849-1930), in Shadeve 1905-1910, moved to Telz where
he became the rabbi of the town and the head of the famous Yeshivah.

Rabbi
Yosef Yehudah Leib Blokh

Rabbi
Eliezer Simhah Rabinovitz

Rabbi
Aharon Baksht

Appendix 2

A partial list of personages born in Shadeve

Rabbi Mosheh ben Ya'akov-Moshe (HaGolah) (1449-1520), studied in Istanbul,
returned to Shadeve in 1495 where he wrote his book Sodoth Shoshan (in the
steps of the Rambam), later was Rabbi in Krim, where he died.

Shemuel-Yits'hak Hilman (1868-1953), was Rabbi in Berezino, Glasgow and London.
In 1934 emigrated to Eretz-Yisrael where he became headmaster and director of the
Yeshivah Or HaYashar in Jerusalem. He published twenty volumes of his book on the
Talmud.

Hayim-Mordehai Kotz (1894-1930), was active in the Yavneh movement and
in the establishment of the preparatory class of the Telz Yeshivah. In 1940 arrived in
America where he together with A.M. Blokh established the Cleveland Yeshivah.

Yisrael Mah-Yafith (Ma Yofis) (1897-1930), authorized rabbi, writer and poet,
translated popular poems of Kh. N. Bialik into Yiddish and the allegories of
Krilov into Hebrew and Yiddish. For ten years he wrote for the Yiddish
newspaper Di Yiddishe Shtime that was published in Kovno. A selection
of his writings in Hebrew and Yiddish was published in a book in Tel Aviv in 1970, by
Menorah publishers.

The above article is an excerpt from Protecting Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin.
The book contains this article along with many others, plus an extensive description of the Litvak
Jewish community in Lithuania that provides an excellent context to understand the above article.
Click here to see where to obtain the book.

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